I wanted to use today to show Noah around Emmanuel, so that he would have an idea of what is where. We began by heading into the 'Boys Area'. I pointed out the big boys' buildings, the grandecitos building, the small boys' building and then we saw Invisible (Pamela) who I've know the 9 years I've been here. She told me that she works in the medium boys' building (11-12 year olds, the same age as Noah) and that the boys were about to watch The Croods together. Noah was more than welcome to watch the movie with them. At this time, Alina decided to head to the Toddler House since girls shouldn't be spending this much time amongst the boys. We went in and Noah sat on the floor with the boys to watch the movie. He sat with two boys named Sergio and Gerson and quickly became friends. When the movie was over, they put another movie in but it was time for us to keep walking to show Noah more of the orphanage. I pointed out the dental clinic and then we headed up to the power toddler house. Jeremias saw me right away and came running. Noah played with a few boys, but heavy rain came in quickly so we had to head under the porch to stay dry. One of the men in charge brought these cute frog rain jackets out for the boys to wear to the dining hall. I would have liked to get a picture of this, but I left my camera back in our room. We walked with the power toddlers to the dining hall, and I saw Luis David sitting with Bayron...it is how his job to look after Bayron, so I went over with Noah to say 'Hi' and asked if Noah could sit with him during the lunch.
After lunch we headed to the farm so that I could show Noah around. I showed him the chicken coops and the horses, the tilapia farm and the greenhouses. When we walked up to where the goats and pigs were, it didn't sound & smell like they had pigs this year. We didn't see any goats either, but we did see 2 dogs in the pen where the goats normally are. We walked around to where the cows are kept, but they were out grazing (we had seen them earlier).
When we got back to our room to wait for Alina, Noah and I played a few games of Connect 4. It had been a while since I've played that game (middle school perhaps?), so we ended with him having won 3 games and I won only 2. I had purchased a few games from the Dollar Tree prior to leaving the USA - Connect 4, a deck of cards, tic-tac-toe, dominoes, checkers, and a basketball game. These will be taking the place of electronics this year since I've found the past few years with Alina that having a Nintendo DS around minimizes her desire to interact with others. We'll see how these games work.
While we were waiting for Alina, Noah also pumped up the 2 basketballs so that he could dribble them back and forth from the tienda, to work on his ball-handling skills. When Alina came back to the room we headed down to the tienda to have some supper with the basketballs. Alina, who had initially said that she didn't need a basketball in Honduras, was more than willing to take 'her ball' and dribble it all the way to the tienda. They were serving sandwiches made of tuna, chicken slices, lettuce, tomato, and cheese with 3 pieces of bread (stacked kind of like a Big Mac). The plate also had french fries on it. Noah had a whole sandwich, whereas Alina and I shared a sandwich because our goal is for him not to lose any weight down here.
When they were finished with their plates, I treated them to an ice cream treat. The tienda no longer has buckets of ice cream as they did in the past, so Noah will not be able to try the ice cream. But rather, they are now serving frozen snacks, along the lines of when the ice cream truck comes by...ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, different ice creams on a stick, etc.
Reinita came over to the tienda and chatted with us. We found out that she makes all of the food for the tienda, so we told her the sandwiches were absolutely delicious (as were the burritos this morning). She and a few other girls from the tienda played a little bit of basketball (more of the keep-away type) with Alina and Noah when they finished eating.
Alina and Noah with their basketballs at the fountain in front of the church |
Noah and Doris playing keep-away in front of the tienda |
Alina in front of the tienda |
When the tienda closed, we headed back to our room. The medium girls were showering and getting ready to settle down for the night. I chatted with Michell a little bit and Alina headed into the medium girls house to spend time with them. I looked down to the soccer court at the school and saw the 2nd medium girls house down there playing a game of soccer. Since Noah couldn't go INTO the medium girls house, I went with him down to the court and we saw David (Veronica's son who is more or less Noah's age and speaks a little English). A few years back when I first met him, he told me he preferred to be called Messi - since that was his favorite professional soccer player. I asked if Noah could get in on their game and they accepted him right away. He even scored a GOAL!!!
When the soccer game ended, we headed back to our room where Noah and Alina played a few games of Connect 4 and then we played a few card games (golf, kings in the corner, crazy 8) before heading to bed. What a wonderful 2nd day!